Oct 13, 2009
March 14, 2005 Leo Frank (photograph c. 1915) Virulent anti-Semitism led directly to the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and lynching of the innocent, but Jewish, Leo Frank. Police and prosecutors fabricated evidence to win a death by hanging verdict. When the...
Oct 9, 2009
These photos of whites torturing and lynching black men present a side of U.S. history that most history books ignore. They provide one of the many reasons why blacks (and Indians) hold a different view of U.S. history than whites. Notice the carnival atmosphere...
Oct 9, 2009
October 26, 2008Entrance to HM Prison Manchester (Strangeways) where, in a special execution room, Albert Pierrepoint carried out the famous "quickest hanging" in 7 seconds. (photo credit: Stemonitis)Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Pierrepoints, first Henry,...
Oct 9, 2009
Edgar Smith
Edgar Smith, with William F. Buckley Jr. blithely playing his stooge, wrote his way to freedom from the Death House in Trenton State Prison in 1971, becoming the most famous death-row prisoner of his time. Fourteen and-a-half years earlier, Smith -- at age 23...
Oct 9, 2009
The lethal-injection chamber in California's San Quentin Prison.
Death-row inmates are increasingly foregoing the appeal process to hasten the date of their execution. "Volunteers" now account for more than one of every eight executions.
by Robert Anthony Phillips
Timothy...
Oct 9, 2009
Jan. 30, 1999 Updated: Feb. 8, 1999 and June 25, 2001
An overview of the death penalty in this century -- with the leading arguments for and against capital punishment, and some of the leading cases that have motivated the public.
by J.J. Maloney
More than 4,500 people...
Oct 9, 2009
Explores some of the unusual and even humorous facts attending capital punishment.
by Bonnie Bobit
Did You Know?
Frank Johnson was the first death row inmate electrocuted in Florida. He met his fate with the electric chair on October 7, 1924. Throughout 1929 and...
Oct 9, 2009
The true story of a young black man who was executed for murder and an old gangster who wasn't. You decide who got the better of it.
by J.J. Maloney
When I got to work that evening, in 1967, the ward was empty except for old Tony, who hadn't spoken an intelligible...
Oct 5, 2009
Sept. 30, 2009 Updated June 25, 2010
Caryl Chessman
Convicted in 1948 as “The Red Light Bandit,” Caryl Chessman would become an internationally known “Death Row” author and make the cover of Time Magazine. His appeal attorney came within minutes of preventing his wrongful...
Apr 29, 2009
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown was only 13 when she went to work as a telephone operator. She worked the night shift. During the day she studied shorthand and bookkeeping and dreamed of growing up and marrying her boss. Not the boss at the telephone company, but some ideal of a...
